I've found various 3D educational anatomy software packages available, but I have yet to find a software package with the editing capability that I desire.

Ideally I'm looking for software that would allow me to work off of 3D templates of various anatomy structures and then edit components of those structures in a manner similar to that of Engineering or Design software.

I'm looking for this software in order to use it in my fiance's Physical Therapy clinic for either new patients or patients with a complex history of physical dysfunction to be able to describe their dysfunction to someone familiar with the software while they sit and watch the editing of a normal anatomy template.

I'm (hoping) that some pre-med or medical school students have experience with some form of software which could provide something close to this functionality.

12/18/2010 7:13:48 PM

dude. if you find some let me know.

12/18/2010 7:18:46 PM

http://www.materialise.com

12/18/2010 8:56:35 PM

i have absolutely no idea if this is what you're looking for, but apparently google has something called body browser in the works:

http://www.switched.com/2010/12/19/google-body-browser-offers-3-d-view-of-human-body-sans-skin/

12/19/2010 6:30:00 PM

^^ That looks like it might come close to fitting what I'm looking for, but their very advertisement-like description, full of buzz-words, leaves me wondering.. I've signed up to try some of their software but it isn't the quick process that I'd expect. I'll let you know if it turns out to be something useful. By the description of it I'd need access to the source in order to edit it to do what I really want.. or pay them tens (hundreds?) of thousands of dollars to code it for me.

^ I have to research it some more (and I've had too many beers to do that right now), but the basic concept looks great considering Google's somewhat-open-source history with these things. From what i've seen if I could get my hands on their Body Browser code then I'd have a solid starting point. The googlelabs site doesn't appear to offer any editing capability, so it's very similar to most of the other 3D medical/educational software out there today.

12/20/2010 12:28:14 AM

Send them (google) an email telling them of your needs. I'd imagine someone there is interested in what you're trying to do.

12/20/2010 12:50:29 AM

Could you describe a little more what editing functionality you're interested in? You have a 3D model of a joint, what editing would you like to do in real-time? Highlighting specific areas? Actual 3D deforming?

12/20/2010 9:52:13 AM

http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

12/20/2010 10:35:42 AM

I'm looking to make actual changes to the model to show injury, deformities, etc. Being able to show how a deformity, injury, or surgery that didn't heal correctly will put stress on other body structures is a necessity, but as long as I could make edits to the 3D model (e.g. directly edit the polygon data making up the various objects) I could do everything I want. Highlighting as well.

Sadly now that the work week has started I won't have too much free time to look into this until the weekend :/

I know a few people who work at Google, so I'm probably going to try and see if any of them know anybody working on Body Browser.

12/20/2010 1:10:16 PM